SNM019: Dealing With Hate Mail

My First Experience with Hate Mail

My first experience having my personal information and the home addresses of my parents and siblings was a nightmare. One of the members of the forum eventually went out and murdered people. The owner of the site immediately took it down to try and bury the evidence. But even after his site led to murder, the owner simply changed the domain. Fortunately, the post with those old addresses got lost when he changed websites. Do not make my mistakes.

Nearly ten years later people ARE reposting videos of me that fortunately do not have my real name on them. They now post horrible stuff using a very old nickname. I got very lucky.

Create a Business Entity to Firewall you From Hate Mail

There are many financial reasons to create a business entity as quickly as possible, but there are also safety concerns. With any online business, you can get some surprise press and people show up at your house. You want to put layers in place to protect you legally and physically. When you are operating as a business entity, with a business name and address it becomes much harder for people to violate your privacy.

It only takes a few minutes to begin the process and it’s worth doing at the start. If you wait until you are “making real money” then your personal information will be forever linked to your business and it will be much harder to hide your home address.

Isolate Your Social Media

Don’t use your personal Facebook account to connect with fans. You can set up a page in thirty seconds that acts as a firewall. You can still message with fans, like things and communicate. But they won’t see pictures of your kids or the profiles of your family members.

For Twitter and other social media profiles, you should create a brand new account that is only for your business.

Do Not Respond to Hate Mail and Trolls

It is tempting to want to defend yourself or tell people not to be evil online, but that only feeds the monster. If you don’t react, the problem disappears much faster. I was terrified when my address was published, but then it all faded away as they sought out someone who would respond.

Ignore bad reviews and negative press. You can email people directly and offer them a newer version of your content or try to correct what disappointed them. If they leave a malicious review, it’s best to leave well enough alone.

Separate your feelings from action. Why should you care what some random person on the Internet thinks? Ignore them and don’t give strangers power over your emotions. When you react emotionally the trolls smell blood in the water

Protect Your Phone Number

You can easily protect your phone number with Google Voice, Hushed or other apps that cost less than $3 a month and are easy to replace if you get a bad caller.